Across from him, Trap stood and disappeared into the adjacent sleeping chamber. Abramm went back to his forms. He needed the entire sequence to work himself into a fatigue strong enough to allow him to sleep.
When he awoke it was midafternoon and the Sorite slave who shaved and dressed and painted them had arrived to prepare them for their match. They went through the routine wordlessly, exactly as they’d done scores of times before. Indeed, it was hard now to believe this would be the last….
The slave was just leaving when Katahn’s personal secretary burst into the room and thrust a carved jewel case into Abramm’s hands. “The master wants you to wear this for the match.”
Before Abramm could even slip free the gold catch, the man was gone, door thumping shut in his wake.
Puzzled, Abramm lifted the lid, then felt his face slacken as he saw what lay on the satin inside: a pale, gray, opalescent orb, no bigger than the end joint of his little finger, set into a gold ring hung from a gold chain. It wasn’t quite the same as the one he’d had before, the color of this one a little lighter, the sheen more opalescent, but he knew what it was all the same.
He looked at Trap accusingly. “You think I wouldn’t recognize this?”
Trap frowned at him, the expression exaggerated by his painted-on sadface. “What is it?”
“Don’t play dumb. I know you put him up to this.” He pulled the talisman from the box, dangling it between them. “It’s just like the one you gave me when we were escaping the Keep.”
“Perhaps, but I didn’t make it.”
“There are no other candidates, Captain.” Abramm realized then that for some inexplicable reason Trap had reverted to speaking Kiriathan, a language they had not used in months.
Actually, there is,” the Terstan said, still in Kiriathan. A smile might have been tugging at his lips, but the sad-face made it hard to tell.
“What are you talking about?”
“Our esteemed Master,” Meridon said. “Why do you think I didn’t get any sleep last night?” It was a smile, breaking across his face and wrinkling the painted tear on his cheek. “He took the star just before dawn.”
Abramm gaped. “Katahn wears a Terstan shield?”
“I’m sure he’d be happy to show you, but I don’t think now is a good time. If anyone found out …” He spread his hands.
If anyone found out, the Gamer would lose everything-wealth, position, family, even his Brogai status. He would be expelled from the caste, condemned to spend eternity in the Dark Abode and ostracized by all who did not wish to join him there. No wonder Trap spoke in Kiriathan.
Abramm’s gaze dropped to the stone dangling in his fingers. “So now you expect me to take it, too?”
“I’m sure his only hope is that you’ll wear it for the match.”
Abramm scowled at him.
“You know they’ll put you under Command if you don’t. I’d have made you one myself if I could have figured a way for you to wear it.”
Abramm tightened a fist about the chain. The spore in his arm writhed protest at being so close to the stone, goading his rising anger. It annoyed him that Trap would think him so weak, so malleable…. Yet the memory of his own body operating outside his control remained as vivid-and compellingas ever. He clenched his teeth, hating where this was leading.
“They promised to use only steel with us,” he said.
“You know they won’t. Not today.” The Terstan tugged at the fall of lace under his chin, pulling out an errant fold tucked improperly under the collar band.
Abramm’s arm tingled distractingly. He hadn’t refused Beltha’adi’s offer of clemency yet. Maybe he would surprise everyone-himself included-and accept it. Then there would be no fight, no need for Command, no need for protection.
He stared at the opalescent stone and shifted uncomfortably, feeling Trap’s eyes upon him.
“It isn’t going to … I mean, it won’t make me … you know.”
The brown eyes didn’t blink. “Only if you wish it.”
`And I will be able to take it off?”
“Of course.”
As if that mattered. Still, if he were to accept Beltha’adi’s offer-Oh, plagues! You aren’t going to do that, and you know it! Besides, the first thing they’ll ask you to do is turn on Trap, so what would you gain?
It seemed he had no good choices here, no matter which way he turned.
With a sudden jerk he shook the chain open and looped it over his head, the stone thumping benignly against the ruffles on his chest. He scowled at his friend. “Satisfied?”
“I suggest you put it under the doublet. If the Broho see it, they’ll snatch it away.”
Exhaling annoyance, Abramm pulled the heavy satin away from his chest, picked up the chain, and threaded the stone down behind the froth of ruffles and the slick silk of his under blouse.
Feeling its warmth and hardness even through the silk, he shivered uneasily. “You’re sure I’ll be able to take it off?”
“You took it off before.”
“I know, but … it’s different now.”
Trap’s head jerked up, his gaze suddenly intent. “How so?”
“The color’s changed. And … well, I don’t know exactly. Why are you looking at me like that?”
The Terstan’s intensity gave way to something that once again could be a smile. “Because for the first time,” he said, “I think we might actually survive this.”
C H A P T E R
24
A thunderous roar erupted from the amphitheater crowd around Carissa, and she shuddered beneath her veils. Someone else must have died, she thought grimly. What in all of Torments am I doing here? Cooper’s right. Even if the Infidel is Phil’s brother, we can do nothing to help him.
When they’d ascended from the arena warrens last night, the boy had been exuberant. It took real effort for him to curb his enthusiasm in the face of Carissa’s disappointment at learning the Pretender was not Abramm, but that hadn’t stopped him from persuading her to help him free his brother. She wondered now what she had been thinking, for clearly there was nothing they could do. Even Philip had no real plan. Eidon will make us a way, he’d insisted. But, as usual, Eidon had yet to come through.
Perhaps if Cooper had not thrown such a fit she would have been more reasonable. But when he outright forbade her to go, she grew incensed. And when he said she was too weak to stomach what went on in these Games, that she’d not last five minutes of them, she grew all the more determined. If he could bear it, so could she.
She’d abandoned that contest early on, appreciating for the first time the vision-obstructing mask propriety demanded she wear. Not only did it shield her from the carnage, it kept Cooper from seeing just how deeply that carnage affected her. Twice already she’d nearly lost her breakfast, and now she spent a good deal of time staring into the darkness beneath the eye holes, scratching her staffid bites and hoping fervently that the horror would end soon. I should have stayed at the inn with Peri.
Forced by the crowds to find their place in line outside the gates last evening, she, Cooper, Philip, and their hired retainer, Eber, had spent the night dozing on the plaza’s dirty brickwork, and even so they just managed to find seats. The necessity of entering the arena early meant they were there for everything-from the first event, which entailed lions stalking a frightened herd of broken-down horses, to an eternity of demonstrations by the infamous Broho, brethren of the vaunted warriors who would ultimately face the Pretender and his Infidel.
Members of the elite fighting caste of the Brogai aristocracy, the Broho were said to carry the power of Khrell himself in their bodies. That power enabled them to mutilate their own flesh with the tattoos, piercings, and ritual self-infliction of wounds that proved their indifference to pain. It also made them inhumanly strong and quick.
Lions, tigers, huge horned and armored beasts from across the deserts, Andolen prisoners of war, barbarian slaves, sarotis-crippled Terstans, Dorsaddi warriors
-the Broho vanquished them all. They killed and maimed with sword and ax, hand and foot, nail and tooth. Tiring of that, they vomited gouts of purple fire that blasted away their adversaries’ chests or heads or limbs.
Worst of all was the writhing veil of fear they sometimes set upon their victims, coils of mist that wrapped them in a paralyzing terror neither man nor beast could resist. Wailing, screaming, roaring, their eyes rolling wildly in their heads, the victims stood helpless and pliant as the Broho tortured and slew them, sometimes swiftly, sometimes not swiftly at all.
And this was merely practice for the final match of the day and the famous victims whose deaths would last the longest yet.
The crowd let out another thunderous roar, and for a moment she thought she would suffocate behind her veil.
This is senseless. Admit he’s right, you idiot woman. Do you wish to live with the memories of those brave men being castrated, blinded, and skinned alive?
She glanced at Philip sitting to her right, Eber’s silent bulk looming just beyond him. He looked like a wax boy, his features frozen, pinched.
She touched his arm. “Philip, maybe Cooper’s right. Maybe-“
“Go if you wish,” he said, staring at the ring. “I’m staying.”
“But there’s nothing we can do-“
“I can witness his death. And I can remember it.” He looked at her, eyes grim and hard. “He will not die like the others.” His gaze shifted back to the arena. “The Broho are not the only ones with powers, my lady.”
She frowned at him. Meridon was a Terstan, yes, with a Terstan’s alleged powers, whatever they might be. But nearly a score of his kind had died here already this morning, and their powers had done nothing to deliver them. Why believe Meridon would be different?
She could not fault the boy for his hope, though. If it were Abramm down there-and she was desperately thankful it was not-she would not have been moved from this bench, no matter how dreadful it got.
The crowd’s roar had dwindled to a loud murmur. From the concourse above, she could hear the annoying, minor-keyed melody of a trio of pipers, accompanied by their drummer, wheedling amidst shouts of vendors peddling hot, spicy sausages, fried caterpillars called spima, and wine.
She risked a glance at the arena, found it empty but for the wide oblong of stone sentinels encircling its perimeter. Gray daylight filtered through a central hole in the great canvas ceiling stretched overhead, washing over the churned and bloodstained sand. A faint mist shredded off the stones, drifting upward toward the hole, a mist that had not been there previously.
She glanced left toward the arena’s end, where a huge stone image of Khrell had been set into the second tier of seating, grimacing over the playing field. Scarlet flames danced in its fat belly, their light shining eerily through the back of obsidian eyes. Just below it, in the Ringside Tier, a large seating box draped in red was filling now with red-robed, shaven-headed priests. These were the Game Masters who would fashion the arcane illusions that always accompanied the greatest tales.
A quarter of the way around the stadium from the statue of Khrell and his priests, dead center of the oval’s length, was a similar box, this one draped and garlanded in gold. For most of the day it, too, had stood empty. Now various robed, furred, and bejeweled Brogai nobles were filtering into it, talking and laughing among themselves.
The box was nearly full when a sudden blast of the long-necked horns from the musicians’ gallery cut through the crowd’s low rumble. In the wall beneath the Game Masters’ box, a pair of tall doors trundled open. As the fanfare continued, two black horses burst out of them and into the light, a gilded chariot flashing in their wake. It carried a man armored and cloaked in gold, holding his crescent-mooned helmet under one arm as he waved at the screaming crowd with the other. The chariot wheeled a circuit about the ring so that all could see their Supreme Commander.
Beltha’adi was a short, beardless, broad-chested man with a hawk nose and a gleaming shaven dome. Ranks of gold honor rings lined both ears, and even from a distance one could feel the power of his personality.
Completing its circuit, the chariot stopped in front of the idol, and as Beltha’adi dismounted, the crowd quieted. Then, before them all and with great solemnity and flourish, he dropped to his knees and pressed his forehead to the sand. The stadium lights dimmed and Khrell’s belly fires flared, eyes flickering as if the statue were alive. A cold sense of evil crawled over Carissa’s scalp and she shuddered.
Beltha’adi rocked back onto his heels and stood, then rode his chariot around to the royal box. Once he had taken his seat, the doors beneath the idol opened once again to disgorge a line of gray-tunicked soldiers, marching under the standard of the black moon on purple field. A moment later, doors in the wall opposite them disgorged another line of men, these in Kalladorne blue.
The sentinel rocks glowed with a pale light amidst ever thickening mists, and the Taleteller began, his voice deep and resonating. He spoke of the great struggles of the past and of the Brogai tradition of champions facing one another to determine the outcome of a battle. “Our Supreme Commander has continued this practice, requesting always from those who would stand against him a champion, a man to fight him one on one.
“Today we give you a forthtelling of one such conflict, still to come. The day our Great Lord Beltha’adi-Chosen of Khrell, Favored of Aggos, Champion of Laevion-faces the king of the Kiriathan pigeons on the northlander’s home soil. A conflict sure to unfold not many months hence. Representing the Great One himself is his champion Oriak ul Ranour, First Lar of the Broho, defender of the Heart of Aggos, the undefeated master of the Val’Orda.”
From the still-open doors under the statue of Khrell, a man seemed to float into the arena, his long, black-skirted trousers hiding the movement of his feet. He wore a deep purple tunic, belted at the waist, the sleeves rolled back and tied. His bald head gleamed in the combined light of the idol’s fire and the stones’ glow, scalp and face mottled with a network of tattooing.
Lines of gold honor rings ran up both ears. A long Broho elbana rode in its black, lacquered scabbard at his hip.
Gliding away from the doors, he turned, fell to his knees before Khrell, and pressed his forehead to the sand. Three times he did this, and when he arose to face the screaming crowd again, the amulet at his throat flared purple with the power of his god.
The mists had obliterated the canvas ceiling by then, blotting out all light from above, so that the glowing sentinels stood out starkly in the darkness. Those farthest from the idol shone the brightest, casting their blue-gray illumination on the doors they framed. As those doors opened, the crowd quieted and the Taleteller spoke again.
“Representing the king of Kiriath we have our very own Kiriathan champion, alleged descendent of the royal line of Kalladorne and also undefeated, the White Pretender, and his Infidel, who will serve as his second.”
The words sent yet another chill crawling up Carissa’s spine, for though she knew they were claiming the Pretender to be Kiriathan and even of Kalladorne heritage, hearing it proclaimed was unnerving.
The doors rumbled to a stop, and the two men she had seen so briefly last night stepped into the ring.
As before, the taller one wore all white-doublet, hose, and those horrid, too-short, ballooning breeches that were the height of recent Kiriathan foppery. From this vantage he looked like a white pear, decked with lace and ribbon and topped with a long white wig and gaudily jeweled crown-the outfit hardly even an exaggeration of the more outrageous versions of current Kiriathan fashion. Again his face was painted stark white with the laughing jester lips and black lines exploding from his eyes in an expression of perpetual surprise.
His companion looked equally foolish-afroth with emerald frippery and a black wig, face painted with a sad-mouth and a black tear falling from one eye.
And yet, despite the absurd costumes, they carried themselves regallyparticularly the Pretender. He stood straight-backed, chin up, rad
iating defiance, and he had a presence about him every bit as mesmerizing as Beltha’adi’s. Whoever he was, it was plain to see how he had gained his following.
The crowd erupted all at once, with no apparent cue. One moment they were silent and the next they were screaming their lungs out in a thunderous wave of sound. Not cheering, but not jeering, either-more an expression of savage excitement. White diamonds appeared out of nowhere, reflecting the sentinel stones’ light so that they danced and fluttered like butterflies throughout the dark bowl of audience.
The two men moved with long, easy strides, their heads high, their hands resting lightly upon the blades that banged in scabbards at their sides, the weapons a sobering counterpart to their apparel. After all she had endured, their courage caught her heart. Perhaps we will not see these two quaver and quail before the beasts. It’s said there were men who could do it. It’s said these two have, in fact, done it….
The pair strode to ring-center and stood to face the royal box. The swell of voices waned, and a light appeared over Beltha’adi. The Supreme Commander stood and spoke, his voice eerily amplified. “Pretender, you have shown great courage and ability in combat. You have shown us you have the heart of a son of Khrell. As a reward, I will be merciful. Renounce your past, do homage to Khrell, and I will spare your life.”
The crowd burst into a low mumble of surprise, mutterings passing back and forth as people asked if he’d said what they thought he’d said, then fading as they waited for the Pretender’s answer. The silence intensified until she could hear the softest rustles of the people around her.
Finally the Pretender spoke, his voice ringing through the arena’s lofty spaces, deepened and distorted in amplification. “I am a Kiriathan, sir, and I will betray neither my heritage nor my homeland!”
The audience gasped, and Carissa felt a thrill of pride.